i could be with anyone
by emilyforprez
Summary: i'm not saying that it's right. i'm not saying it's a lie. i'm just saying that it's where i'm at tonight.
1. i could be with anyone

**A/N: **If I had more muse – aka, if Ryan Murphy would give me some Puck/Quinn once in a while, I'd write more. But alas, that is my predicament. This is AU. And it's extremely strange. It's a multi-chapter, yes, but since it's so strange and all over the place, the chapters are very very small. And because of that, I will update every single day. Mark my words.

* * *

She's walking along the surf on a Floridian beach at midnight. It's spring – her favorite season, for it's the time of regrowth and flowers and the smell of living things. She loves it. Everything tastes so fresh in the spring.

The sand feels cold in between her toes, but the blood-warm surf comes up to meet her, the foam glowing a light silver underneath the round disc in the sky.

It's so peaceful, with the heavy breeze rustling in her hair and the salty tang of the ocean in her eyes, that she doesn't even notice the disturbance until she's standing directly in front of it.

She starts a little. "Um..." Nervousness creeps up her spine, but she brushes it off insistently. The boy in front of her can't be much older than she is. "What're you doing?"

There's the glow of a grin on his shadowed face. "Watching you."

Rather than fear, annoyance grips her. "That's creepy," she admonishes snappily, turning to brush past him.

He hurries to meet her. "What's your name?"

She can taste the booze on his breath. "Courtney," she tries, glancing at him. There's a puzzled look on his face, and she can see it so clearly in the moonshine that it startles her into thinking that he might just be handsome, if he smiled.

"You don't look like a Courtney." He smiles again, wide and genuine. "You look like..." He stops. "I don't know. You look like something else."

And maybe it's the way he's looking at her, or the way he's smiling, but it makes her melt just a little, and butterflies beat their wings in her stomach. "It's Quinn," she admits. The surf rushes over her toes.

There's a quirk in his lips that makes it look like he's smirking at her, like he knows a secret, and she finds herself intrigued to know more about it. He winks. "It's Noah," he says. "But don't call me that."

"What am I supposed to call you?" She reminds herself that she won't be _calling_ him anything. She would never see him again after tonight.

"Puck." He extends a fist, indicating for her to bump it. "It's short for Puckerman."

She stares at his fist until he lowers it, raising an eyebrow. "Why are you here, anyway?"

He indicates with his hand to the beach farther ahead. "Beach party," he explains. "Was heading home and saw you." There's a sheepish look on his face now. "Look, uh – you should give me your number. We can... do something, sometime, right?"

"I have a boyfriend," she tells him immediately.

"So?"

She bites her lip. "My parents always told me to stay away from guys like you," she offers again, giving herself an A for honesty. He's exactly what she was told to avoid.

He moves closer, his breath hot on her face. "My mom would shit her pants if I told her I found a girl like you."

She blinks twice and smiles. Before she can help it, he smiles back, and it's not long 'till she walks home with his number written on the inside of her wrist.

That's how it begins.

She might as well blame the alcohol.


	2. so i can stick to anyone

**A/N: **oh, the possibilities of Quinn's sister.

* * *

"It's late," says Jasmine when Quinn walks into the door. Her sister is perched on the counter, eating some burnt toast in her pajamas. "It's past midnight, Quinnie."

Quinn glances at the clock. "So it is," she replies shortly, tossing her cardigan on the couch. She catches Jasmine's eye and sighs loudly. "Don't look at me like that. I was just out for a walk."

"You're blushing." Jasmine leans forward and scrunches her nose. "It's that 'I-met-a-hot-guy' blush."

Quinn narrows her eyes. "I _did _meet a hot guy." She hides the inside of her wrist by pulling her sleeve down to cover it. "But nothing came of it. He was..." She hesitates for a moment, then finishes lamely, "drunk."

Jasmine rolls her shoulders. "Mom and dad told me to keep you away from guys while you're here," she reminds her little sister, as if Quinn had forgotten and broken the rules.

"I know." Guilt burns on her wrist where the digits are written, but she doesn't stop hiding them. "I have a boyfriend, remember?"

"Of course." Jasmine's voice is dull and uninterested. She hops off the counter, twirling a bit on her toes, before she waggles a finger at Quinn in a mocking way. "He's boring as all hell. But... mom and dad like him."

Quinn nods. "Sure." Her throat tightens at that.

"You're hiding that boy's number on your wrist," Jasmine adds when she swirls past Quinn in a flurry of her night-gown and perhaps a bit of red wine. "I know all the tricks."

Quinn bites her lip and releases her sleeve; it bunches at her elbows. "You won't tell dad, will you?" It's spring break, she rationalizes. She's supposed to have fun. She's supposed to be enjoying herself with an expendable boy on the beach. She didn't come here to sit about.

Jasmine's eyebrows raise in a way not unlike their mother's. "Lips are sealed, baby sis," she promises. "But adultery is a sin, you know."

"Shut up." Quinn's blushing again and she doesn't know if it means she's guilty or if she's simply giddy. "I'm just going to give him a call."

Jasmine hums a short, cheerful tune before her door slams shut.


	3. see i'm in love with everyone

Despite wanting desperately to break her parents' rules and call Puck, Quinn doesn't touch the numbers on her wrist for at least two days. By the time she's alone, and the day is young by the sea, it's been so long she's afraid he won't even answer her call. He's probably busy, she reasons, probably with other girls and at more beach parties. He's allowed to be free, so he is, while Quinn stays home thinking of excuses to not call him.

She finally does decide to dial the faded numbers on her wrist and waits with bated breath as the phone rings, over and over, over and over. She lets out her breath when his voicemail reaches her. _It's Puckerman. Leave me a message and I'll see if I want to get back to you._

She slams the phone down and curses herself for being so silly. Of course he won't want to answer; of course he's busy. Of course, of course. She's just a stupid little girl. He's much older than her in mentality.

She's still beating herself up about it – for waiting to call him, for calling him at all, for even being on the beach when he was coming home from a beach party with booze on his breath – when he calls her back.

"Hello?" Puck's voice is soft and gravelly over the phone. "Quinn, right? Quinn?"

She exhales through her nose and inhales through her mouth, biting her lip. "Actually, it's Courtney." She can't help herself and collapses into a fit of almost relieved, breathless laughter.

"How could I forget?" There's a smile in his voice.


	4. while the honeymoon burns bright

**A/N: **Last chapter was way too short but this is a bit longer.

* * *

"Tell me what there is to do in Florida," Quinn prompts curiously, "for a girl who doesn't drink."

Puck curls his fingers into hers. He's taken to doing that; they've shared nothing more but the impersonal intimacy of playing with each other's fingers and palms, determined to learn the back of the other's hand as well as they know their own. He holds her tiny hands in his and hums softly. She vaguely thinks he could be a bird in another life. He's always humming.

He rolls his eyes at her. "There's nothing to do during spring break in Florida for a girl who doesn't drink." His fingers are warm around hers. "You're a wet blanket."

She punches his arm lightly with her free hand, but she's smiling. "That can't be true," she argues. "You don't _have_ to be drunk to have fun."

The look he gives her is full of sarcastic skepticism.

Quinn huffs. "Fine," she declares, picking up the pace on their leisurely walk to drag him along the stringy grass at the hill of the sand-dunes. "I'll show you."

There's amusement in his eyes. "Please do." Puck allows himself to be pulled along, and Quinn doesn't waste any time tugging him. "If what you're going to do involves sand-castles, I'll be real with you, that's stupidly –"

"Shut up." Quinn stops to a quick halt at the foot of the sand-dunes, curling her toes into the sand as he faces her. For a long moment, he watches her reaction to the sea breeze and the fresh air, before she turns imperceptibly to the side to murmur, "Take off your clothes."

He chokes on his own spit. "Please tell me you just said that and it wasn't in my head."

"I just said that." She whirls around to face the waves again and leaves him standing, stunned, behind her. "Well, come on." The sun has started to go down; she's bathed in orange light. "I wasn't _kidding_."

Quinn hears the rustling of clothes behind her, the unzipping of his jeans. Her heart thuds a cacophony in her chest but she remains silent until he stops, and she begins, pulling her sundress over her head and tossing it into the warm sand behind her.

She can feel him watching her but she doesn't stop, not until everything is off and she's diving into the cold surf without so much of a splash.

"Mom and dad told me to keep you away from boys," says Jasmine's mocking voice in her ears, and Quinn flinches physically at the guilt. It's far too late, though; she's dug her hole and now she's climbing further into it.

When she surfaces for air, Puck has waded into the water waist-deep, and he's watching her with the quiet awe of a tiny child and a monument. "You amaze me," he admits, sliding further under the water. "Are you ever going to stop doing that?"

Quinn's heart races and her breath catches rapidly. "Stop doing what?" There are sharp shells under her toes; she rises and falls with the waves as they pull her closer to the shore, closer to Puck.

"Stop..." He frowns. "Stop making me feel like you're too good for me." He reaches for her in the sea-foam, barely catching her fingers with his. Even in the water, his palm is warm and soft in hers.

Quinn exhales slowly. "Maybe I _am_ too good for you," she suggests in a whisper, pressing their foreheads together to stare into his eyes. They're just like hers, she thinks. Green and yellow and brown. Every ugly color mixed into one.

"Maybe you are." Quinn waits for him to close the space between them, but he doesn't. He wraps his arms around her waist and they float lazily in the waves as the sun bleeds into the sea and the moon rises over the horizon.


	5. tempting sample of who i could be

It's been a week but she feels she's known him for years.

That's the scary part, that she's so attached to someone she should hardly know. It scares her that she wants him and it scares her that she's throwing all of it away for the sake of a few moments in the Florida sun. That scares her. She shouldn't be lying to her boyfriend and shouldn't be lying to her parents but she feels it's easier to lie to _them_ then to her_self._

So she continues on seeing him even if there's guilt in her chest and there's fear in every step, like she'll say the wrong thing or he'll mess her up. He's going to hurt her. She feels it in every bone. She's childish in all the wrong ways, and he's mature in all the wrong ways.

But she holds onto him. She likes him. She likes it when his fingers curl into hers and she likes it when he presses their foreheads together and she likes it when it's too hot outside for clothes and they spend the day tangled in each other.

She likes him.

That's only going to make things worse, but she pretends to not notice.

It's starting to get hotter and hotter at night, and she's starting to get more restless with every time his fingers skid across her cheeks. "This will never work," she whispers to him, pressing soft kisses to each of his knuckles.

He sighs into her hair. "Is that what you think?"

Quinn opens up his clenched fist with her own hands, pressing her nose into his palm and nodding quietly. "We're too different."

Puck pulls his hand away from her and cradles her face with his hands, pushing their noses close enough to touch. "I think you need to let go," he tells her, tugging on her bottom lip with his teeth. "I think you need to forget about everything else and just..." He feathers kisses across her jawline."_This."_

Quinn's tongue darts out to moisten her lips. "Okay," she whispers in contentment. He's holding her up and letting her reach for the stars, she thinks vaguely, and maybe she's keeping him on solid ground.

It's the thought that makes her stay.


	6. it's not what i'll be

"Hey, Quinnie," Jasmine calls from the living room. "How would you feel if I just started speaking in a fake British accent all the time?"

"I'd think you were insane, Jas," Quinn replies from her room, tossing her phone over and over in her lap as she contemplates calling Finn. There are a few missed calls from her boyfriend back home, and a text message from Puck. Quinn can't decide what to answer.

Jasmine's voice gets closer as she walks down the hall. "I'm going to do it just to see what mom and dad think," she laughs. "What d'you think? _'Ello, gov'na._"

"Sounds terrible," Quinn mutters irritably. She's not really listening.

Jasmine stops at her doorway, frowning. "Someone's a little pissy today," she remarks almost cheerfully. "What's got you so chipper?" But no big sister of Quinn's is an idiot, and Jasmine knows quite well why Quinn has been so conflicted lately, why her sister has been in and out of the guest house all break.

"You were right, Jas." Quinn looks down at her phone again. "You should've kept me away from the boys over break."

Jasmine shrugs. "I figured you'd be able to take care of yourself."

Quinn doesn't answer. Part of her wishes Jasmine hadn't thought that; part of her wishes her sister took care of her like she was five years old again, back when boys were stinky and gross and she wanted nothing more to do with them. She should never have left Lima.

She's going to hurt one of them but she can't decide which one it should be.


	7. conversations sharp and deep

"Promise me something."

Quinn's head is in his lap, and they're listening to the sea again. She lifts up at the sound of his question and props her brow, leaning forward to rest her chin on her wrists. "Shoot," she prompts, watching him.

Puck fingers with a curl that falls unevenly at the part of her hair. "You should keep in contact with me when you go back to Ohio." He sounds almost embarrassed to be requesting this of her. Quinn gets the idea he doesn't do it a lot.

"I thought I was expendable." It's somewhat of an accusation, but Quinn doesn't really mean it. She always thought Puck would be expendable to _her_, until she fell far too fast and it never really worked that way.

Puck shakes his head. "I promise you, you aren't." There's a hint of a smile on his lips. Something like a truth that she can't really see or reach out and touch, but knows it's there. "You're something else entirely."

Quinn doesn't know what makes her do it. Quinn doesn't know what makes her toss it all away all at once, and she certainly doesn't know why it has to be here, of all places, on the hill of a sand-dune in the turquoise grass. But she rises to her knees to keep eye-level with him, and she gently takes off her blouse and she gently tugs at the hem of his shirt, and for a moment she can't get to his skin fast enough.

Quinn is sure he's going to tell her he loves her. She's sure he's going to say it and half of her dreads it while the other half anticipates it, but he's silent the whole way through. He's quiet as she gives herself over to him, far past midnight in the realm of nature.

But he whispers something she can't quite hear, can't quite make sense of. If she could only understand it, perhaps it would change everything.


	8. and i know that it's not right

"Where've you been?"

Finn's voice is concerned and warm and everything she doesn't want to hear, especially from him. She wants him to be angry for her not calling, she wants him to hate her, she wants him to break up with her over the phone like every dumb teenage boy.

But he doesn't. He's bright and cheerful and caring as always.

"Oh, you know..." She's been everywhere. Puck's arms, Puck's bedroom, Puck's _bed_. "Just... around. Busy." The lie burns a trail down her throat.

"That sounds nice," Finn says dreamily. "When are you going to be home?"

Quinn jumps at that, because until Finn brought it up, the idea of going home had never crossed her mind. She found that she didn't really want to return to Lima; she didn't really want spring break to end. She wanted to lay on the sun-baked sand in Florida for the rest of her life, fingers curled in Puck's hand.

But she can't do that. Quinn has a life at home, a family, a school, a reputation. A _boyfriend_. And as much as she doesn't want to admit it, Lima is where her home is. She can't stay.

"I... I don't know," she admits softly. "Maybe the last day of break? I'm... having fun here." She can't help but wish Finn could catch on and be suspicious about what kind of "fun" she's having. She wants him to break up with her so she can blame it all on him.

But Finn doesn't do that. "We miss you," he tells her kindly. "I guess you'll be back in like... seven days. Seven days is a week, right?"

Quinn bites her lip. "Yes. A week."

She hangs up the phone as soon as she can and looks out from her bedroom window at the sea, rising and falling over the sand. For the tiniest moment she feels tears well up in her eyes and a longing to be free forever.


	9. i'm just saying that it's not a lie

His truck pulls up the gravelly road to Jasmine's house, and as soon as he steps out she can smell the beer on his breath. His smile is loose and goofy, his hands clammy and fumbling. She almost wants to laugh, but it's not really that funny.

"Wanna show you something," he tells her, keeping his voice low in case Jasmine hears. "But you have to be quiet." He puts a finger to his lips and motions for Quinn to follow him, down to the beach once more.

It's like a cycle, Quinn muses. They met on the beach. They kissed on the beach. They made love on the beach. It all comes down to the beach, and it makes sense that it's where he's bringing her now.

He's tripping over his own feet in the sand, but his hand is steady in hers, and Puck seems to have a destination in mind. There's a smile on his face in the moonlight and a determined glint in his eye before he stops, and Quinn comes to a halt beside him.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to be –"

He clamps his hand gently over her mouth and brushes her ear with his lips as he whispers, "Just wait. They're coming."

Quinn stands still, Puck's arms looped around her waist from behind, before she sees them – whatever it is she's supposed to be seeing. There are hundreds of them, crawling down the beach and into the shore as the tide rises and falls to capture them.

Baby sea turtles, just hatched from their nest and ready to enter the sea.

Quinn is unable to look away. The turtles travel as a swarm into the water, one by one sliding into the foam until they disappear entirely. She can't help an escaping gasp. She knew it was sea-turtle egg-laying season but she never expected to be able to see _this_...

Puck drops his face into her hair and she can feel the warmth of his smile. She watches and watches as the baby turtles crawl into the ocean and disappear from sight.

"It's so..." Quinn can't even find words to describe it, but she's choked with emotion. "It's beautiful. Oh my gosh, they're beautiful." She longs to reach out and hold one, but she knows she can't. It's almost like a butterfly with a broken wing; beautiful and helpless but untouchable.

Puck doesn't answer for a long time, and by the time he does, Quinn thinks he might've sobered up a little, even if he was barely tipsy before. "I love you, I think," he tells her, pressing a kiss to her temple and brushing his thumbs along the inside of her palms.

Quinn releases the breath she had been holding, gripping tighter to his hands. "I think I love you, too." Two weeks, she thinks. That's all it took.

He lowers his head to feather kisses up and down her neck, and he continues until she's laughing and snorting against him, far too ticklish for this. And it feels right, it feels natural and real and tangible, so she forgets to tell him that she's leaving in three days. She forgets to tell him that his love would go to waste.


	10. i'd walk soft if i were you

She's packing to go home when he actually wakes up, and there's an understanding in his eyes, like he's a child who's just solved a particularly irritating math problem. He sits up to hunch over on the side of the bed, a sheet wrapped around his waist. Quinn waits quietly for him to say something, but he doesn't quite yet.

"I'm heading home tomorrow," she explains to him, unable to handle the look on his face and the silence in the room. "I... forgot to tell you. I guess."

"Gonna forget about me?" The words are a joke and Puck's mouth is twisted into a playful smirk, but there's something vulnerable in his eyes that Quinn doesn't dare touch. "Spend all your time with... what's his name? Ken?"

She folds her pink shirt neatly, tucking it into the corner of the suitcase. "The next time you allude to me being a Barbie doll, I _will _hurt you." He chuckles. "His name is Finn, Puck. He's my..." She stops and her heart kind of twists in an unpleasant way. "My boyfriend."

Puck snorts. "Like fucking hell," he mutters to himself, just loud enough for Quinn to catch the words. "What am I, then?"

Quinn stops packing for a moment. She owes him more than half her attention. "You're..." She hums to herself and lays down on the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling and tracing patterns into the texture. She can smell the sea from here. Stale and salty and cold. "You're chopped liver."

"You're mine," he tells her, like this is something she doesn't already know. "Stop pretending you don't feel like that, too."

She doesn't answer this time. "Maybe..." This hurts. This is the worst part. "Maybe it'd work best if we kept this here." She gestures to the room. The house. The beach. Florida as a whole.

"So you don't want to keep in contact with me in Ohio?" There's an angry sneer to his voice. "You're fucking bipolar."

Quinn glances at him. She wonders what it'll be like to not see his face every day. The thought hurts a little, but maybe she'd get used to it. "Yeah. Maybe I am." Maybe she can't make up her mind. Maybe she likes things to be simple and he's far too complicated.

He takes a sharp breath. "I hate you sometimes." He's hurt. She hears it in his voice but she doesn't call him out on it.

"I hate me sometimes, too," she confesses.

Quinn expects him to get up. She expects him to leave and not even say goodbye to her at the airport tomorrow, but he doesn't. He stays still and she curls into the warmth of his side and wishes he'd tell her he loved her, like he always does when it's quiet.

He doesn't. She doesn't blame him, but she whispers it into his skin as she pulls off his shirt.


	11. you could cut up your feet

"Come on, Quinnie." Jasmine's cheery voice comes from the living room. "We've gotta be at the airport in twenty minutes. Then there's the layover in Atlanta..." Quinn listens idly as Jas's voice goes distant. "And off you go to Lima." There's a snort of laughter in Jasmine's voice; she hates Lima just as much as Quinn does.

Quinn wipes the tears at the corners of her eyes and finishes zipping up her makeup bag, tossing it into her suitcase. "Am I gonna get to meet Ian?" she asks curiously, slinging the suitcase over her shoulder. "I'm the only one who hasn't yet."

"That's because you were at a cheer competition when we visited last time," Jasmine sighed, motioning for Quinn to hurry into the car. "He might be there. I don't know."

Quinn smiles. "You've got that twinkle in your eye. He's going to be there, isn't he?" Ian is Jasmine's husband-to-be – whether he likes it or not, Quinn notes bemusedly – and Jas usually did nothing but talk about him. He works as personnel at the airport – baggage check and all that, and is usually never home.

Jasmine starts to pull from the house. "Yeah, he will. Don't embarrass me."

Quinn can't help it; she rolls her eyes. "Like I would."

"Where's _your_ boy-toy?" There's slight curiosity and warning in Jasmine's voice; like she's getting ready to give a long speech about adultery or something... like she's going to tell mom and dad.

Quinn feigns disinterest but there's a lump in her throat, and she ignores the stinging behind her eyes. "He's expendable, Jas," she tells her sister shortly. "Just a... spring fling, really."

_I love you, I think._

Jasmine's mouth is set in a thin line, and she doesn't reply right away. Then, slowly, "So you... said goodbye already?"

_I hate you sometimes._

"Yeah." She closes her eyes and counts to three. "Just last night."

_I hate me sometimes, too._

"That's..." Jasmine frowns, and her mouth opens swiftly as if she's about to say something else, but she closes it again and shrugs. "Good, then. Mom and dad would throw a fit. He wasn't exactly..." She bites her lip. "Well, he's no Finn."

_But I love you sometimes, too._

Quinn shakes her head. "No. He isn't." One, two, three. Count to three.

_I love you most of the time._

The rest of the ride is silent and Jasmine's eyes aren't quite on Quinn, aren't quite on the road either, as if there's something she's left unsaid and can't recall what it is.


	12. oh, hopefully

The plane glides off the runway. It's early in the morning still, and by noon, it arrives at the airport in Atlanta, where the passengers stretch their legs and grab bites to eat. By half past three, it's in the air again and its destination is the airport just outside of Lima.

The plane arrives at 7:08 pm exactly, and then there's baggage claim before the passengers can return home, jetlagged and weary.

Quinn sits at the foot of a sand-dune on the only uncrowded beach in Miami, watching the water again, breathing in the sea air. She wasn't built to live in a small town like Lima. She thinks she was always meant for the smell of ocean breeze and the words of the waves in her ears.

She doesn't notice the footsteps right away, but she feels his touch on her shoulder, his palm on her cheek, and she lifts her head to meet his kiss.

"I couldn't go back," she confesses. "Not without saying goodbye."

Puck's eyes find hers and he pushes his forehead just against hers. She breathes in his aftershave. "I love you," he tells her fervently, as if he could never say it enough.

She wraps her arms around his chest and he lifts her just a bit off the ground, enough to make her feel like she's flying. Perhaps she always has been flying; it just took him to make her realize it.

There's an ocean of words in his eyes and she can taste the salt in his kiss. "I'm sorry," she tells him, and she probably couldn't say it enough. "I love you, too."


	13. caffeinated stream of cartoon smiles

She's lying in his bed, nursing an awful sunburn as Puck rubs aloe gel on her skin, when she receives a call, and she's reminded why she can't just run away. She glances at the screen and swallows thickly; it's her parents.

Quinn doesn't know exactly how to respond or how to act, so she ignores the call altogether and twists to her side to face Puck. He's not quite naked – there are clothes barring skin – but she feels sweaty and close already, her face far too close to his and her body fitted around him in a familiar way. She thinks she should never leave Miami; she should stay forever in his bed, curled around him like puzzle pieces that fit oddly.

He kisses her gently, slowly, then peppers his lips across her collarbone,until she's squirming, and she forgets that her parents are calling for her.

But he breaks the contented silence; he's always been good at ruining things, almost as good as she is. "You're going to have to go home eventually," he ventures, distracting her with his hands while simultaneously trying to get her attention with his voice. He's awful at this.

"I know," she whispers. If she were a smart girl, she wouldn't be here and rather be at home with Finn, but she isn't. Perhaps this means something. Perhaps Quinn isn't a smart girl.

Puck pauses, as if he should say something more but decides not to, and instead he palms her sensitive red skin with soft hands. She's burning from the sun and the humidity in his room. "Is it hot in here or is it just you?" he asks, fingertips trailing down to her wrist.

She laughs. "It's just Florida." She tries to breathe in the sea from here. He doesn't live on the beach, but rather in a tiny area of Miami just nearby. All she smells is cologne and city smoke, but she wriggles her toes and can feel sand still in between them.

"I think it's you." And he captures her mouth quickly, swallowing her laughter, and all she can think about is drowning without needing to breathe.


	14. for now it's just what i am

Quinn realizes that all good things come to an end eventually when she walks into Jasmine's kitchen just before the sun goes down, figuring she should check in.

Her sister is pacing with the phone to her ear, and Quinn immediately recognizes her father's voice on the other end. "Dad, she's –" There's a quick pause, then: "She's _fine_. We just were late to the airport, that's all. She'll be home in –"

Quinn freezes as she hears the venom her father is spitting from the other line. _School, school, school, church_ – she can hear the words being repeated over and over.

Jasmine sighs. "Okay. Okay. Fine, tomorrow. Get a ticket, then." Another brief moment of silence. "We'll be on time."

Quinn closes her eyes. "Jas?"

Jasmine looks up, the phone clutched in her hand, her eyes wide and dry. She breaks into a grin. "Hey, Quinnie, girl." She puts the phone down, her eyes shifty, going anywhere but right into Quinn's. "How are you? Sunburn feel better?"

Quinn realizes that Jasmine is trying to divert her attention from the phone-call, but it doesn't work. "Jas, I'm going to have to go home tomorrow." She frowns. "I should want to, shouldn't I?"

Her sister blinks thoughtfully. "No, baby girl," she sighs, wrapping Quinn into a warm embrace. "It's normal not to forget..."

_Your first love,_ Quinn supplies, but she doesn't say a word.

"...Something like this." Jasmine laughs. "But you need to go home. Okay, Quinnie?"

Quinn look into her sister's eyes. There's something there in the green depths that doesn't quite make sense – something reluctant and sad and worrying. It reminds Quinn that her sister has always been a romantic. Perhaps it's hurting her, too.

"Love you, Jas." There's other things – more important things – Quinn could say. She doesn't.

Jasmine nods. "Yeah. You too, brat."


	15. a ballerina dreams a leadfoot life

This time, when the plane leaves at 9:00 in the morning the next day, Quinn gets on it. She slips into first class seating and curls with a blanket by the window. She watches the airport just behind her, and searches for Puck's face in one of the windows beyond, but she can't catch his features there. Perhaps he decided not to come after all.

When the plane begins to roll across the runway, and the lines start to blur on the other side, Quinn looks away.

By the time she's up in the air, it's too late, and she's en route to the airport outside of Lima. She'll be going home. School has started already; she only missed a day of it, and surely she couldn't have missed much.

There's a text from Puck when she reaches to turn off her phone.

_Miss you._

She stares hard at the words before she presses down on the off button, watching the screen flash once and burn out. There's sand in the crevices of the keypad.

She realizes she can't smell the sea.


	16. and i'm not saying that it's a life

Everything Finn does has to measure up to Puck.

Finn's smile is too wide and his hair is too gelled and his eyes are too brown. He's too tall and he's too lanky and he's too clean. He's too simple and too slow and too dependent. He's everything Quinn realizes she doesn't want.

It's simple, really. She thinks it might be simple, at least. Break up with him or cut the poor boy some slack, maybe be patient with him. She thinks he might deserve that from her. Especially after...

She decides not to refer to her _thing_ with Puck as an affair. It isn't. It's like a compromise. She doesn't love Finn. She doesn't particularly _want_ him. So the compromise stands – she can be with Finn for show and Puck for –

She stops herself. He's miles and miles away from her now. It's not like he's going to wait for her. That's not him; that's not who he is.

Even to her own mind, she sounds like a cheater, cheater, cheater. Perhaps it'd be best if she broke up with Finn after all. It's like to euthanize a dying dog. Might as well; it's only a means to the end.


	17. at least for a little while

**A/N: **Glee's on tonight. Should I even get my hopes up for Quick? Y/N?

* * *

It's the first time she's spoken to him since she left and it's almost like she can breathe in the sea air from where he is. There's a distant crashing of waves over the transmission. It feels more at home than her own bedroom.

"How's everything?" she whispers in the dark, worried her parents will hear her and wonder who she's talking to. "School, and your sister, and everything – just tell me everything."

There's a brief silence on the other end, broken only by the screeching of gulls and the hissing of waves over the sand. "There's nothing to tell," he mumbles at last. "Everything's lame with you gone."

_Liar._ She decides not to call him out on it. "You're not good at being romantic," she murmurs, biting her lip to swallow her laughter. "Stick to being yourself. I like you better that way."

"Can we have phone sex?"

She starts laughing, and she can't remember when she was laughing this hard, snorting and gasping in wild breaths only to start giggling again. "Not like _that_," she breathes finally. "There's gotta be something _else_."

There's another pause, as if he's trying to think of something, but in the end he says, "I miss you. How's home?"

She doesn't tell him how suffocated she feels, she doesn't tell him how lost she is without the sea around her. She doesn't breathe of a word of how much she misses him and how much she wants to go back. She's not pathetic. Only tired. "It's... home."

"And Finn?" There's a hitch in his breath. It's so quick she can hardly hear it, and then she wonders if she heard it at all.

She doesn't answer him. "I love you."

She thinks he's going to yell at her or not answer her at all, but there's a sound of resignation on the other end and she can hear the smile in his voice. "And I love you. You don't even know how much."

Quinn doesn't know why it sounds like an apology.


	18. no electricity to keep things light

"How was your spring break, dear?"

Quinn glances at her mother and notes silently that it's her fourth glass of wine, but she says nothing, only smiles pleasantly. "It was great," she replies stiffly, forcing herself to remain calm. If her parents ever found out that there was a _boy_, she'd be... murdered. Burned like a witch. Emancipated and taken out of the will or something.

Mr. Fabray cuts in with a laugh. "Well, enough fun. You're back now." There's almost a warning in his voice. _Stay focused. Your future. College. Scholarships._

The mashed potatoes in Quinn's mouth jam up her speaking. She fancies that her jaws are stuck with super-glue, and she would never have to speak again, never have to answer probing questions from her parents. She swallows thickly. "Of course." _Of course, I'll let you live vicariously through my success._

Exams in two months. Report card over the summer. College in two years. Marry a Christian man and have Christian children. Go to church every Sunday, keep your room clean, dress modestly. Over and over and over.

The stress never really penetrated Quinn until now - until she realized what it was like _not_ to have to do all these things. Just to lose herself in the calm crashing of the waves and the smell of salt and sand. She only ever had to focus on the gull songs and the sun. She had a taste of freedom and was forced to let it go.

_Puck._ She can still feel the lingering whisk of his touch on her skin.

In Lima, the only body of water is a tiny duck-pond in the park. There are no waves, only the sedated rippling of little minnows underneath the surface. Quinn hugs her knees to her chest and forces herself to breathe; she can't suffocate now. She's come so far, and she's still so young.

The stress is getting to her. It's piling up in her chest and crippling her lungs, and she realizes that she's too big for Lima, yet too small to leave.

She can't recall the last time her period was late, but she finds herself counting two days over on her calender. It's the stress. She refuses to believe it's anything else.


	19. i'm not saying that it's always right

**A/N: **Lost my internet.

* * *

Quinn's not an idiot.

For her whole life, she's prided herself on her intelligence, if nothing else. She manages straight marks in every class, rarely falling below a B, while simultaneously remaining top dog on the squad and in the school. She's smart. She's realistic.

So she knows that when her period is late for a week, it isn't the stress and it isn't teenage hormones.

Quinn won't say it - she refuses to - until she knows, and that's how she ends up in a tiny bathroom stall in a gas station just outside of town, clutching a pregnancy test in her white hands. She wonders briefly how long she has to wait for the results. She thinks she'd wait forever, and never have to know. Maybe she just doesn't want to deal with it.

But the pink plus sign appears eventually and she lets herself break.

She's not thinking, exactly, that she's pregnant. She's not thinking that she's going to have to tell her parents or _Finn_ or...

Puck. He's so far away.

She can't even think about telling him. He's going to run. He's going to freak, and she won't have _anyone_ and...

Sometimes, Quinn feels like an idiot. She feels like she should trust people a little more. Trust _him_, at least, if no one else. He's never given her a reason not to.

Sometimes, Quinn wishes she could disappear. Lay on a beach somewhere, with a nice breeze and calm waves. That's her perfect place. Nothing else exists.


	20. with every sweetheart on the scene

Quinn can't call Puck. Her fear for his reaction outweighs the need to talk to him, so instead of dialing him, she dials the only other person in the world she trusts with anything: her sister.

She begins with saying, "Jas, don't freak out, okay?"

There's a pause on the other end, then a shifting sound. "Alright, Quinnie. Go ahead." Her voice is soft, and resigned, as if she's expecting something awful. Quinn can't help but think she's going to give exactly that.

"Jas..." All she has to do is breathe in and out. Inhale, exhale. As long as she's breathing, as long as her heart is beating, she's alive, and she's perfectly fine. "I'm, ah - pregnant."

Another brief silence. "Oh. Oh, _fuck._"

Quinn tries to laugh, but it comes out weak and breathless.

"Shit," Jasmine mutters, sighing. "Mom and dad are going to -"

"Don't." Quinn can't even think about telling them, can't even think about telling anyone else. "I don't... Jas, what do I _do_? What do I say to Puck? Finn? And mom, and dad..."

Jasmine's breath is slow on the other end. "You need to talk to Puck. Tell him, because he needs to know." Quinn can hear Jasmine pacing; she remembers why she called her in the first place. "Finn can... Fuck, I don't care. Finn's an idiot. But mom and dad... especially dad..."

"Jas, I can't -"

Jasmine stops her with a short grunt. "Okay, no. I'll be there. I'll get a ticket and fly up there myself. I'll... I'll help you tell them."

Quinn's breathing stops. "Jas..." She can feel a stinging behind her eyes; for a moment she thinks she might start sobbing. "I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not," Jasmine says bracingly. "I'm doing it anyway." Quinn bites her lip and doesn't say a word. "Listen, I'll be there within a week. I'll call you. Just... until then... stay strong, okay? You're the strong sister here. I love you."

Quinn feels like she can breathe again. "Love you too, Jas."

The dial tone feels almost like a sigh of relief.


	21. sugar daddy and his clueless wife

**A/N: **WHO BREAKS PROMISES? I BREAK PROMISES.

* * *

The mud over Quinn's toes feels nothing like the warm sand at the beach, and the murky puddle water looks nothing like the blue sea, but for the time being, it's all she has.

She thinks things should be simpler.

Simple, simple, simple; maybe she should be older, and she should be with someone wiser, someone different, and maybe it'd be okay. Maybe she should've stayed in Lima for spring break. Maybe she should've never let herself breathe in the sea-salt, because now it's all she can taste in her mouth.

She should've never fallen in love.

But what's done is done, all the same, all the same; the mud is cold underneath her feet and the water flits with tiny minnows.

Finn catches her bare-foot in the mud and calls her a silly girl, wrapping his arms and a towel around her and ushering her out of the rain. He holds her tightly, a tower coveting its guest, rubbing her arms to warm her up.

If his arms meant to hold her up, Quinn found herself desperate to fall.

All the same, all the same...


	22. no electricity that keeps things right

Depression hits her like a torrent of rain.

She dodges Finn's calls. She dodges the messages. She sits in her bed and wills away everything, just wants to be alone, tells her parents she's sick and doesn't want to go to school.

At midnight, she dials Puck's number, and listens to his voicemail pick up again and again and again.

He doesn't answer until the eighth call, and by then she's half-asleep, her thumb brushing the keys weakly. "Quinn?"

She starts at the sound of his voice and finds herself blurting, "I'm pregnant."

He doesn't answer. She thinks it'd be better if he hung up; the sound of his silence and the hitch of his breath hurts more than the dial tone ever would.


	23. oh i could talk to anyone

"Your sister's pulling in now."

Quinn half-understands this; the rest of her body is thrumming with an uneven pulse, and she sits silently at the dinner table, fingers unconsciously splayed across her stomach. She fancies she can feel the baby inside of her, and wonders if the little child knows just how much she's about to risk.

Jasmine sits down across from her moments later, giving away nothing but a blissful happiness to see her sister again. Quinn smiles weakly.

"Be strong," Jasmine mouths, and by then the Fabrays are seated comfortably around the table, cutting into their steaks with an almost haughty air about them.

Quinn nods and looks down at her food. A wave of revulsion rises like bile in her throat, and she swallows thickly before taking a pursed sip of her water, wondering exactly what Jasmine plans on –

"So, mom and dad." Jasmine places her knife down on her plate, smiling pleasantly. Quinn pretends to be interested in shards of ice in her drink and can feel the water turning to salt in her mouth. "I hear Quinn has been sick."

Mr. Fabray glances at his daughter and nods. "Vomiting, I suppose, yes –"

"Dad –"

:"Jas." Quinn interrupts her sister with a mere word, an imperceptible shake of her head. Her heart sears like fire. She needs to breathe again, but there's no fresh air, nothing to hold on to. All she can taste is the musk of the meat and the smoke from the small town. She's being smothered. She can feel it.

Jasmine glances at her sister, nods a little, and chews silently.

"Daddy," Quinn begins, "I think you need to – well, I think – I need to tell you something."

She can feel the hammering of her heart and remembers that she's still alive. She remembers that there is air in her lungs and blood through her veins, and as long as that's true, well – she's fine.

The words slip from her mouth. Like whimpers of pain, whispers of truth.


	24. one two three four one

Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out.

Like hot breath on the back of her neck.

She grabs nothing but her phone and a bag of clothes and slips into the waiting car in the driveway. Inside she can hear the screams and accusing yells of her parents and Jasmine. The leather is cool and soft against her skin, and she wonders if she could just sleep here forever.

Ian sits in the driver's seat, drumming his fingers against the dashboard. "Is she gonna be yelling at them all night?" His blue eyes watch her from the rear-view mirror.

Quinn can't smile so she grimaces instead. "Maybe."

But sure enough, Jasmine appears from the door, her face red and angry, her hair in disarray as if she's just had a fit. Mr. Fabray yells something foul from the doorway and Jasmine whips around to show him her middle finger and yell, "Fucking rich, _daddy_."

She jumps into the passengers seat. Quinn can feel the tense hatred in the compressed space.

"We're going home." Jasmine twists to look at her sister. "Hear me? I'm not letting you back in that house."

Quinn nods silently.

Ian gives a bit of a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood, but Jasmine keeps him quiet with an almost deadly glare. "But we don't have plane tickets –"

"Then just _drive_ there, stupid." There's amusement and fondness in her eyes, though, and Quinn realizes that there's nothing perfect about any of this, yet she keeps an almost idealistic smile on her face.


	25. it's where i'm at, tonight

She feels like a fugitive, a runaway, yet she's finally home.

The sea air is clean and fresh in her lungs, and she inhales it desperately, almost forgetting how it felt to taste the salt and hear the waves and feel the sun on her face. It's such a big world, such a wonderful place, yet she was living underneath a box.

"And here I thought you came back for me," a familiar voice remarks from just behind her, warm and guttural and gut-wrenching.

Quinn whirls around and wonders how long he's been standing there, how long he's been watching her raise her arms to the wind and twirl in drunken circles. She wonders how long he's been watching her make a total fool out of herself with no one around, just her and the sand and the gulls to laugh at her.

She folds her hands behind her back and smiles. "I came back for me, actually."

He smiles, too. "Same difference, isn't it?"

Quinn can feel the stretching distance before them, though they mustn't be that far away from each other – she can still see him perfectly, as if he's merely an inch away. "How long have you been watching?"

Puck cocks his head. "Always."

"Always?" Quinn reaches his side in an almost instant, and he twists his fingers through hers, curls his palm into hers, like it's the easiest puzzle in the world.

He nods. "I always stood here and watched. Waiting for you."

Quinn presses her nose into the plaid fabric of his shirt, inhaling the elusive cologne and the salt forever stained into his clothes. She wonders how she managed at all without him.

He kisses the part of her hair. "Love you. Missed you."

She feels like she'll cry, but then she remembers she's not sad.

* * *

fin

(might be an epilogue)


End file.
